As many of you know, our family has been looking into adoption for the last year and a half, even though it has been on our minds for much longer. My husband and I even discussed on our first date our (at the time, separate) desires to one day adopt and/or be foster parents. It has always been waiting in the background, but life has been busy with five boys. Last March, we suddenly felt we needed to move forward and look into adoption. Everything fell into place quickly, and we found ourselves heading to Indiana a few months later to take part in a hosting program, where children are brought from orphanages in Ukraine. We had an amazing visit with our little girl, and it cemented our decision that not only was it right for us to adopt, but she was a missing piece to our family.

After two hosting trips, we were surprised to learn that our little girl has a half-brother. So, where we had started this journey with plans to bring one child home, we now had to decide if it was feasible to bring two! After lots of thought, discussion, and intense prayers, we felt that this was still something we both wanted and could do. We are so excited to bring them both home!

Because our children are not yet eligible for international adoption, we have needed to continue hosting until the time when we can submit our dossier. We did not want them to go out to other host families, interrupting the bonds we were starting to form and making attachment more difficult. While this adds greatly to the expense, we do feel fortunate that we have these opportunities to come back together and have extra time with first our daughter, and this summer and winter also with our son, in our home. 

We have worked incredibly hard and saved as much as possible to be able to make this adoption happen, but with a projected cost of now $60,000+ (more than a year's salary for our family), I'm sure you all can understand the difficulty in making it to our final goal. We've started a fundraiser on Pure Charity to help raise some of the funding that we need to make our adoption a success. We have a donations goal of $10,000 that will fund the last portion of our adoption costs. At this point, we have wiped out our savings and reigned in every last dollar we could muster.

Every donation, no matter the amount, is significant and greatly appreciated. Even $5 would help us to reach our goal. We all have a $5 habit we could kick for one day:

-a $5 Frappe 

-a $5 e-book

-a $5 app purchase

-a $5 meal from the drive-thru


Would you be willing to give up your $5 habit, just for the day, and donate to give these children a safe, loving home? 

If you're inclined to do so, we would love if you would also take just a second and share this with others who would be willing to participate. We are so grateful for all of the support we have received along the way. We couldn't have come so far without you!

Thank you so much for being a part of our lives and helping us bring our children home!